now to end the year juuuust right, we're staying in with a few friends, a big pot of chili, lots of ice cold shiners (and champagne too, don't worry), and a fire pit in the backyard.

i really could not have asked for a better year and i'm so, so excited to get started on crossing off goals for 2013...in fact, one of them technically got crossed off last night, but i'll get in to that later this week.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

goal #11 on my 30before30 list was to read at least one book a month for a year. i started my first book of 2012 in early january, and instead of stopping at 12 books, i actually made it through these 15 books:

some of them i loved & some of them...not so much. but i'm not really one of those people who can start a book and just set it down halfway through if i decide i don't like it. once i've invested time in it, it's getting finished.

do you put down books halfway if you just hate them? or do you force yourself through them?

in case any of you are interested in my very non-professional literary opinion,

i had a really hard time getting through the receptionist (very slow and anti- climactic), cloud atlas was also a bit too slow in my opinion, and the same kind of different as me was not at all what i was expecting (turned out to be a very religion-focused book which i was not interested in. i can be really interested in a book about religion if that's what i set out to read, but in this case - i didn't).

my favorites were the non-fiction books: wild, arcadia, unorthodox, blood bones & butter, unbroken & half broke horses. in fact, i absolutely loved all of those books and i would highly recommend them to anyone who loves reading memoirs, auto biographies, anything non-fiction.

although i was able to check this off the list this year, i still want to make sure i read a lot next year, too. so i'm beginning to put my 2013 book list together and will come back with an update on that semi-soon.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

goal #15 on my 30before30 list is to visit spain & luckily, that goal will be crossed off next year! the husband & i know that we're in the planning stages for a trip over to europe, and we know that spain is involved...we just don't know what other country is also involved. since the tickets over there are so expensive and the flights so long, we figured that going to just one location doesn't really make sense - why not make the most of it and hit up as many places as time/money can afford? originally, greece was in the agenda for this trip, but the airline that we're going through (using tucker's miles from work travels) doesn't fly to/from greece, so that may be tossed out of the picture (too bad, since that's also on my list!)

we've been taking our time and doing research on several different places that we've considered visiting after a week in spain. (italy isn't being considered since i've been there, and we want to go somewhere that's new to both of us).

we're not going on this trip until late summertime, so we have plenty of time to make decisions. but being the planner that we are my husband is, we want to iron out all of our details sooner than later, hence the research starting now.

plus - let's be honest, it's just really, really fun to think about trips for months in advance and have something great to look forward to!

will we be eating meat pies followed by macarons and strong coffee? orrr whiskey and irish stew?

Monday, December 10, 2012

technically, i've checked this off my 30before30 list twice before this year (here and here with 5k's), but this one is the one that really counts for me - i finally ran the half marathon that i've been scared of since i signed up for it in august!

i'm not going to lie, i wasn't too excited the night before the marathon. in fact, tucker had to talk me in to doing it probably about 5 different times (at least). i was super, super nervous that i wouldn't be able to do it under my goal time and in turn, i'd get really frustrated with myself. but of course, i had signed up for it, paid for it, trained for it, we drove to dallas & picked up my bib and packet for the race. it was just going to have to happen, regardless of how many times i fake coughed and pretended i was sick & couldn't run.

so on saturday night, the night before the race, i slept approximately an hour and a half. and when i woke up really early to eat my banana, my carb-loaded breakfast bar & black tea, my stomach was in knots. but by the time we walked over to my corral and got me all set up and ready to go, i got over the nerves. i was already there - it was going to have to happen, so i might as well just get over it. my biggest concern was that i didn't train enough, and hadn't run far enough to get through this easily. and i was absolutely right - it wasn't easy. but, it actually went a little bit better than i thought, i'm assuming because of all the adrenaline and endorphins that were running through me. i will say that it would have been much more enjoyable if it was colder...running in 76 degrees is not nearly as fun as running in 50 degrees.

at mile 9, i was so, so tired and started walking and about 30 seconds in to walking, a woman came up behind me, patted me on the back and said "no no, keep running. you & i have been at the same pace throughout the whole run" - so i sped up and started to run again. thank you so much, mile 9 lady in the pink tutu!

and thank you thank you thank you to my handsome, sweet husband that told me he was proud of me about 50 times, wore a shirt that had my name on it and gave me a hug & kiss at the end of the marathon, when i was at my grimiest and sweatiest.

Monday, December 3, 2012

this weekend was an awesome one. it was made up of snuggly cats, one amazing (and free!) gary clark jr show, downtown pizza dinner dates outside, beers at the ginger man with my ginger man, seeing my dad & little sister who came up from mexico for the weekend, and...see that last picture up there? that was my sunday. all. day. long.

i'm completely sucked in to unbroken, and couldn't stop reading it yesterday. it helped to have some abuelita hot chocolate to make me want to stay in bed, too.

[i just realized there are a lot of things in those sentences above that i want to suggest to you all. never heard gary clark jr? do yourself a favor and go listen, like now. haven't read unbroken? please go buy/download it immediately. oh, and abuelita hot chocolate? it'll change your life]

i am now officially less than a week away from running my first half marathon, and i'm extraordinarily a little nervous, but excited! when i first signed up for the marathon and saw that it would be in december, i thought: surely i'll need a good long sleeved running shirt, and maybe even something to cover my ears? false. that's just false. it was in the 70's all weekend and the weather during today's run was 67 degrees, so...that's kind of a bummer, actually. i prefer to run in colder weather, but what can ya do?